Turning off iCloud sync deleted my Desktop folder on my macbook pro 14

Thanks. For anyone else reading this, here's everything that has transpired:

1) First, I did not initiate the sync. It may have happened automatically in the recent update to the new OS. Google did the same thing with their photo service.

2) STORAGE COUNT on iCloud shot up to over 740 GB. The maximum free storage we get is 50 GB.

3) LOCAL DESKTOP FOLDER itself was put into another folder marked "iCloud Drive archive" inside my Home folder. I cannot remove this folder out of the enclosing folder. So my MacBook Pro Desktop itself is empty. I cannot seem to move the, rebuild, or make a new, Desktop folder so that content shows up on my desktop. Even my wallpaper is gone. I do not want my Desktop to be controlled by iCloud - I want it to generate from my hard drive.

4) TOGGLING OFF DOCUMENTS/DATA SYNC in System Settings triggers a scary, confusing error pop-up saying items will be "removed" from my Mac. This makes zero sense. I'm too afraid now to toggle off the sync.

5) MY LOCAL FILES that were in my original Desktop folder were incomplete. Some of them were on iCloud, with what I hope was the remainder in the moved Desktop folder. The majority were duplicates, as expected. But many crucial files were not. Some of the folders on iCloud were EMPTY when they should had content in them. Fortunately, the ones locally in the new Desktop folder were intact. I hope I haven't lost anything.

6) DOWNLOADING THE ICLOUD FILES in order to reintegrate them with the archived Desktop had to be done by hand, piecemeal, which took well over 12 hours. I wanted to work quickly to avoid Apple calculating the ridiculous cost for storage they were likely going to charge me for 740 GB of stored files that I did not initiate uploading to iCloud.

7) HARD-DRIVE BACKUP took 3 hours, but at least my current files are safe. Now I have to figure out how to get my Desktop contents to actually show up on the Desktop.

Thanks. For anyone else reading this, here's everything that has transpired:

1) STORAGE COUNT on iCloud shot up to over 740 GB. The maximum free storage we get is 50 GB. This is how I discovered my Mac and iCloud were synced. I did not initiate the sync and don't know how it happened.

2) TOGGLING OFF DOCUMENTS AND DATA was how an Apple article said was the way to keep my documents local without putting them on iCloud. So I did that. The opposite happened - some (not even all) my documents disappeared into the Cloud and my Desktop folder disappeared. Imagine my sheer panic.

3) LOCAL DESKTOP FOLDER, that I finally found, had been put into another folder inside my Home folder marked "iCloud Drive archive." The local files in this archived Desktop folder were incomplete. This turned out to be an older version of my Desktop folder. Many files were missing.

4) THE ICLOUD FOLDER in my left hand menu seemed to contain whatever had been moved into iCloud. It contained some duplicates, but also some of the files that were not archived locally. I do not know if all the missing files were moved to the Cloud.

5) DOWNLOADING MY FILES FROM ICLOUD in order to reintegrate them with the Desktop Archive had to be done by hand, piecemeal, which took well over 12 hours. I wanted to work quickly to avoid Apple calculating the ridiculous cost for storage they were likely going to charge me for 740 GB of stored files that I did not initiate uploading to iCloud. However, removing them from iCloud also emptied my Desktop screen, probably because the Cloud Desktop was empty, and the local Desktop has vanished.

6) HARD-DRIVE BACKUP took 3 hours, but at least most of my current files are safely stored away from my Mac.

7) TOGGLING OFF DOCUMENTS/DATA SYNC in System Settings triggers a scary, confusing error pop-up saying items will be "removed" from my Mac. This makes zero sense. I'm too afraid now to toggle off the sync. But I do NOT want this horrible experience a second time.

8) LOCAL DESKTOP IS GONE. I cannot get past the pretty Autumn farmland image. Any attempt to move the Desktop Archive out of the enclosing archive folder triggers a "cannot modify this folder because it is required by Mac" error message. And anyway, I don't think my Mac recognizes it as the local desktop anymore. That function seems to be terminated.

I do not want my Desktop to be controlled by iCloud - I want it to generate from my hard drive. I would love to know how to rebuild, or make a new version of the local Desktop folder;

I edited my response to you, which the forum would not let me save. I included it below.

Believe me when I tell you, iCloud storage read as 700K+ GB, and I did indeed find the entire Desktop had been moved into iCloud. That's how I was able to download and reintegrate them into the archived Desktop.

I did resync out of panic, but as I explained, the local Desktop folder had completely disappeared. I do not want part of my files in the Cloud and part on my hard drive. I don't know about whether storage was optimized - I never even initiated this sync, so I don't know what else "Apple Intelligence" will do without my electing it.

As for synced documents disappearing when toggling off, I don't know why I would want that! I definitely don't want 700K GB of my files held hostage by iCloud!

Now that I've backed up my documents, I can try turning off sync again, but this may require another 3 hours to restore the local files from my hard drive. However, again, there is no Desktop folder to restore them to! My Desktop is gone - I can't get past the initial Autumn farmland image!

Thanks for trying to help - I do appreciate it.

Toggling off Documents and Data worked - my Mac generated a new Desktop folder and I was able to drag my files out of the archived Desktop and into the new folder. Nightmare over.